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Matt Frost tips me to Terry McAuliffe’s latest bit of campaign publicity — hamming it up with will.i.am, that musical posterdude of the campaign (Obama’s) which the Macker, not so long ago, was staying up nights trying to discredit into oblivion. Terry failed; but then again, he has never been good for anything besides bootlicking and fundraising for the Clintons, something he has done for so long, with such preternatural force and totality of conviction, that he has been let in to all the best parties the Democrats have thrown . . . but only for that reason, and begrudgingly. Having Terry around is like having the Geico gecko’s uncharismatic loan shark cousin around, and the Macker knows it. At the terminal level of lackeyism, however, there are only a few ways to fix this kind of problem, and Kim Kardashian won’t return his calls. No, RESPECT will only redound to the Macker if he pulls off the ultimate fundraiser’s coup: a wealthy, inevitablist, winning campaign with no candidate — which is to say, with the fundraiser himself as the candidate.

But this RESPECT is not due Terry McAuliffe, and his demented run for office in a state where even Ollie North had a second act must be stopped. Unless, that is, political power is the natural reward for a lifetime spent sucking other people’s scum. Any Republican or Independent should deny the Macker his plum out of a reflex instinct for their own basic dignity, and any Democrat looking to repudiate the most ingrown and debased personnel decisions of the Bush administration should recognize the Macker for what he is and write in the Geico gecko. Gov. Gecko will save you 15% on your car insurance. Terry McAuliffe will justify every nightmare vision of the rot of American politics you have ever entertained. Real choices.

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